Per Christum

I have resolved to try to post at least one of the new saints or beati daily.

Too often Catholics begin to think of saints as something in the past… Mention “the saints” and Catholic imaginations immediately go to images of statues staring at the ceiling or icons that depict other-worldly virtue in a highly symbolic fashion. To be quite clear, there is nothing, in and of itself, wrong with that sort of imagery. Nothing at all.

But I fear too many people have a disconnect between those sorts of images and the reality that saints are real, as real as you and I are. They are, in fact, as alive as you and I are. Actually, more so still!

During the Pontificate of the Venerable John Paul the Great, well over a thousand such souls were raised to the dignity of the altar. More than a few of them, had they not suffered martyrdom, would be the same age as many of the kindly grandparents we interact with daily. I really want to highlight some of these friendly God-loving souls daily (many of whom we have photographs of, some we have in color, some we have on film!) to show that sanctity is not in the past. It is difficult but not impossible. Still having love and respect and prayers with the ones that went before our modern time, I want to put some emphasis on those who were among us on this side of the vale of tears in the last 100 years when possible. Sanctity is not something “from the old days”. It is real. It is possible. It is for today.

Really when you get to know some of these souls, I imagine a good number of them were not aware in the least that they would be named saints one day. They were humble people who just begged the grace to be faithful and made it priority #1.

(Conversely as Father Isaac Mary Relyea tells us, “If you think you’re holy, that is the first sign you’re not!”)

So given this rich, rich tapestry of sanctity found even into the modern era, I want to bring some focus on these souls for personal inspiration, and also to help other Catholics develop friendship with these powerful friends of God who have already gone before us. They love God, they love us. We love God, we love them.

For a time I had thought about starting a secondary blog with a focus just on underscoring these noble souls. As I thought more about that, however, I came to realize that I rather preferred interspersing them into the sometimes somewhat eclectic posts of PC. Just as they are very real and among us still today, I wanted to keep them in the mix of our posts and our cyber-life here. I invite my 13 other blog contributors to do the same as they see fit. Please share the saints that give you friendship and share their stories with us here.

As my pastor reminds our small flock, even when there are not a lot of people in the pews, our church is always full with the angels and saints who happily join us whenever we partake in the divine and mystical worship.

And note please that the graphic on this post is the painting “The Saints” by Fra Angelico. Fra Angelico (having been beatified by our last Holy Father) is on his way to being recognized as being in the company of the saints himself.